Hot Dog/Vendor

Wow. I thought I'd heard and seen it all after my four (yes, four!) years stripping. But then, yesterday happened. You know how they say men are dogs? Well, if that were true that might make this story a little better.

Remember t-shirt guy? He's a t-shirt vendor in Times Square, and he's a generally good, generous, drama-free customer who comes in every couple weeks. He strikes me as your average "family man who loves to cheat on his wife," pretty standard for the strip club scene.

Background on Vendor Man - he lived most of his life in India as a Tibetan refugee. Hence, he loves India and hates China. I feel him on hating China's relationship with Tibet, but then I get puzzled about his years in the Indian army, especially his time in Kashmir. Why is it okay for him to participate in India screwing over Kashmir, given his critique of China's relationship with Tibet? Well, whatever, it's clear he's no Edward Said or whatever. Anyway, he is a little quirky - like the time he started crying after several drinks because he just "loves Gandhi so much" (read about that here).

Anyway, back to yesterday. He was telling me about his time in the Indian army, and how much he used to love visiting the brothels of Delhi.

Me: Did all the guys visit sex workers in the red light district?

Him: No, I'd say about half. Many of the men were actually really faithful to their wives. I'm sure they were still doing this...(makes a jerking off gesture)

Me: Oh, yeah? As many as half?

Him: Well, some of the guys were really, really into sex. Not just with "whores" (he was using the Hindi work "randi" to describe the sex workers).

Me: So who were they having sex with? Each other?

Him: No! No, they're not GAY! (exasperated) But like one night, I saw three of my colleagues trying to fuck a donkey. A female donkey.

Side note - I love how an implication that they're gay is shocking, but the donkey-fucking is reasonable.

Me: (flabbergasted)

Him: I didn't tell them I saw that, because I didn't want to embarrass them. But, yeah, they were trying to fuck a donkey. Oh man, I knew a guy once who told me he fucked his dog.

Me: (more incoherent astonishment/disgust/shock)

Him: It was a "kutti" (female dog) and he used to fuck it.

Me: That's pretty terrible!

Him: Well, yeah, but then again, have you ever seen a dog's pussy? Especially of a pregnant dog? Ssssss, mmm, they look kind of nice. The lips are nice and plump. It looks so good. Sometimes I think about it too.

Me: (shitting myself)

Him: Americans love to fuck dogs, I think.

Me: Why do you think that?

Him: Well, I've met so many people, like the vendor next to me in the city - he says he's a dog person. What can that mean? It must mean he likes dogs to fuck. One guy I saw in Central Park walking three dogs, and I asked him why he had so many. And he told me he likes dogs more than people. I mean, you know what that means, don't you?

Then he got distracted and, already drunk, began singing this Hindi movie song.

Titter Bar

It was Greg's birthday last week, and he came to see me as a "birthday present to himself." Greg's been my on-and-off regular customer for a good 2 years now! He's generous, a non-rapist, and generally good company. On his birthday visit, he put a small cash gift to me in an envelope, along with perhaps one of the cheesiest Hallmark cards I've ever seen in my life. You know the kind, with a raised pastel flower motif along the front and embossed gold lettering spelling out some corny-as-hell poem about belonging together, growing old together, enriching each other's lives. The kind of card you gag-gift someone! He waited for me to read the card, which I primarily regarded as a "cash holder," but it's clear he thought otherwise. "I read that card, and I knew it was for you. It just spells out exactly how I feel about you. I couldn't have said it better myself." Over the next hour of his visit, he repeated no less than four times how "perfectly" that card summarized how he felt about me.

Like I said, he's a good guy. I'd put him low on he list of awesome guys I've met stripping. The hot half-Asian dude who became politicized as we'd drop antiracist political chit chat between lapdances, Irish Gold, Hot Guy (this intensely sexy construction dude from Serbia who I should have been paying for lapdances), Chester Brown guy (a funny lawyer dude who'd gift me graphic novels from my wishlist every time we met up), and the studly Chicano "friend" I made at the strip club all rank much higher than him, though.

Actually, he's starting to annoy me.

He'll make these stupid jokes and wait for me to laugh at them. For example, he asked me if I was going to be working last week on Friday the 13th. When I told him no, he asked, "What, are you a triskaidecaphobe?" I suppose he thought the punchline of his "joke" was knowing that there's a word for the fear of the number 13? Anyhow, I didn't laugh, but he started chuckling pretty hard. When he saw I wasn't laughing, he said, "You know what that means, don't you?" And I said yes. And then he stared me down, waiting for a laugh. Eventually, I obliged.

He does this all the time. He'll make some remark that he finds funny, start laughing, and then - if I don't laugh - he'll explain the joke to me. Greg! It's not that I don't get the joke! It's that it's just not funny! I swear, next time this happens it's going to come to some kind of standoff - picture his sweaty brow...me, twirling my hair in tension, a tumbleweed rolls through the club. Will she laugh, or won't she?